


Background Dancer

by Liara_90



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Hero Worship, POV Minor Character, POV Second Person, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Sexual Tension, Slice of Life, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 17:14:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12237219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: You're one of the few humans working in Afterlife, in what's supposed to be a night like any other. Except Aria's entertaining tonight.Short fic told from the perspective of a young woman on Omega. More slice-of-life than noir.





	Background Dancer

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Coronation Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344500) by [sigmalied](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigmalied/pseuds/sigmalied). 



> I've toyed around with writing some more stuff dealing with Aria and Afterlife, so this is basically a test-run to see how that goes. It's such a fun universe to explore.
> 
> Inspired by _[Coronation Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11344500)_ by [sigmalied](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigmalied/pseuds/sigmalied), which you should definitely read, though these are fairly different stories.
> 
> My apologies to anyone's who's actually Irish and happens to read this...

It’s noon when your alarm goes off, a shrill and electronic screech that jolts you awake as readily as any gunshot.

Well, it’s _kind_ of noon. On Omega, ‘ _noon_ ’ is obviously something of an arbitrary distinction - it’s not like the asteroid habitat has a natural day-night cycle, after all. But most of its denizens follow a 27-hour day, just like on Thessia, thanks to the asari running the place. Some say the day-night cycle is a creature comfort, a reminder of a bygone homeworld. Others say it’s to disorient new arrivals from Citadel Space, so used to the twenty-hour cycle imposed from the Presidium down, giving the locals the advantage of circadian familiarity.

You’d been disoriented once.

Now you sit upright, slam off the alarm, and grope groggily about for a small bottle of pills. The temptation to hit “snooze” is _powerful_ \- after all, it’s not like anyone is going to force you out of bed - but you’d learned the hard way that that was a luxury you can ill-afford. Instead, you pop the lid on your bottle of pills and dry-swallow two small tablets. The pills - tailored to your genometric profile - contain a slow-release stimulant that will keep you awake for eighteen hours without penalty to your cognitive abilities. They’re a bit pricey, but still loads easier to get out here than _coffee_.

Something about the thought causes you to wrinkle your nose, reflexively, as if expecting the aroma of fresh grounds to waft into your nostrils any minute. _Don’t be silly_. Humans are the only species this far out that drink the stuff, unfortunately, so if you want anything other than the _instant-brew_ crap then you’re shit outta luck.

(‘ _Shit outta luck_ ’, incidentally, was how you described your ‘status’ the last time you updated social media.)

You step out of your room - really more a large closet, but it’s _private_ , so you don’t complain - and into the living area you share with the other interplanetary riff-raff.

“Damn, Niamh, you look like varren shit,” comes the ‘charming’ voice of Sienna T’Nax, an eighty-something asari you have the mis/fortune of sharing a suite with.

“Good morning to you, too,” you mutter back, even if it’s a bit late to be calling it that. “Alina’s asleep?”

Sienna nods, her attention back on a pot of some asari stew that’s bubbling on the counter. “I was awake when she got here, which tells you how late she came back. I cleverly deduced that she had a pretty rough night.”

“Hence the stew,” you say, taking a seat at the small in the middle of the lounge. It could only comfortably seat half of the suite’s four occupants, though you’re pretty sure all four of you have never been in the living room at the same time. “That’s sweet of you.”

Sienna glances over her shoulder at that. Asari literally can’t blush, but the body language is pretty unmistakable. “It’s a traditional Nevosian soup,” Sienna explains, referring to Alina’s homeworld. “With some _very_ _slight_ modifications due to the impossibility of getting any real mushrooms or spices in this hole.”

“I’m sure she’ll love it,” you reassure her. The stimulants are slowly making their way into your bloodstream, so you feel appreciably more… _human_ … by the minute.

“It’s just a soup. You humans are _so_ sentimental,” Sienna chides, frowning slightly at either the smell, color, texture or viscosity of her concoction.

“I promise I won’t tell a soul,” you say with a sly grin. Sienna has a ‘certifiable-badass’ reputation to maintain, after all.

She looks ever-so-slightly relieved. “So what’s _your_ comfort food?” Sienna asks, lowering the spoon from her lips, in a blatant attempt to move the conversation along. “The Earth cuisine I should make when you next come down with the sniffles?”

You frown at her back. It’s a familiar line of teasing - for whatever reason the human immune system just can’t match whatever the Goddess gifted the asari with. You’ve been lucky to never get anything worse than a mild cold since you left Earth, but Sienna has a tendency to treat you like you’re some sort of invalid whenever you get as much as a runny nose.

“ _Stobhach Gaelach_ ,” you eventually reply, watching as Sienna tenses up, her translator stumbling momentarily over unfamiliar Gaelic.

“Irish stew?” Sienna repeats back, speaking in English, the phonemes unfamiliar to her lips. She switches back to her asari dialect, as if having tried the syllables and found them not to her taste. “That’s where you’re from, on Earth, right? _Irish_?”

“ _Éire_ ,” you reply, suspecting it will get translated to _Ireland_ in Sienna’s ear. “Beautiful little island in the North Atlantic.”

Sienna shrugged - _it was all Greek to her_ , so to speak - and made her way over to the table, a small bowl of greenish-yellow liquid filling it to the brim. “Try this,” she says, dropping the bowl in front of you. “I want to make sure I don’t poison Alina.”

“You asari see us all as disposable, don’t you?” you tease, raising the bowl to your lips with both hands. Sienna shrugs unapologetically.

You cough. “Christ that’s hot,” you say, having somehow not noticed the wafting steam. “A bit bitter, but it’s grand.” You take another sip. “Reminds me of… reminds me of…”

Sienna shoots you a quizzical look as you grope around in your memories. It reminds you of _something_ from back Home, but damned if you can place it. It’s a fairly well-documented sensation among spacefaring humans - memories of Earth seem to fade unnaturally quickly. There are a dozen competing neurological explanations, but it makes sense to you, intuitively, at least. Setting foot on the Citadel for the first time… or Thessia… or _Omega_ … it’s just so _unreal_. Surround yourself with aliens for a few years and racially-homogenous-Earth feels more and more like a dream.

“Something from home,” you finally say, unsatisfactory to the both of you.

Sienna still looks vaguely nonplussed by your spaciness, but she returns her attention to the pot, making sure it’ll still be warm whenever Alina wakes up. “You ever think of heading back? Earth, Ireland, whatever?”

Now it’s your turn to give an indifferent shrug. “Eventually,” you reply, noncommittally. “I was rather hoping to make some credits for myself first, though.”

“Ah, you’re on your own little Pilgrimage,” Sienna replies, more likely referring to the Quarian right-of-passage than any human religious ritual, you figure.

“Something like that,” you agree. “I think it’s in my blood, though. We Irish have a tendency to disperse to distant lands whenever there’s hardship at home. England, America, Omega. All the same. At least there’s no famine this time.”

Sienna’s attention is still on the stew, and you suspect she’s tuned you out. Sienna’s interest in human culture is slightly below her interest in elcor opera.

You head to work soon after.

“ _Head to work_ ”. What a normal way of describing such an abnormal situation. You’re a couple million miles from Co. Wicklow, surrounded aliens of all the colors of the rainbow, and about to put on a skimpy outfit and serve them drinks made of things that could kill you in small doses. It’s hard to figure out which part of your post-Prothean existence is the weirdest.

You shower at home, because while Afterlife has a full-service changeroom, you’ve never been one for lingering there any more than necessary. Your suite’s bathroom is small, bordering on cramped, but it’s fairly clean, and Omega’s reactors produce such an overabundance of energy that the water is _never_ cold.

Another perk of sharing a suite with asari and salarians - no hair clogging the drain. (Unless it’s _yours_ , of course, something your hairless roommates seem to find particularly repulsive.)

You dry your hair - a fiery red mane hacked down to a pixie cut as per the latest dictates of fashion - and spend a few harried minutes touching up your makeup while one of your roommates pounds on the door. One of the nice things about working in a nightclub for aliens is that very few are going to notice if your lips are insufficiently ruby, or if you indulge in just a little too much eye shadow. Turians and batarians remain blissfully ignorant to the nuances of human cosmetology.

Sienna hands you a small, vacuum-sealed bag as you’re putting on your jacket. Some mix of freeze-dried vegetables and nuts so you’ll actually have something to eat on your shift. You make a joke about her hitting her matron stage a little early, which she growls at, but she still gives your head an affectionate rub on the way out.

It’s a short walk to Afterlife, and weirdly enough, one you feel perfectly safe in making. You’ve spent time in the suburban slums of London and felt far more endangered there. Everyone on Omega - like, really, _everyone_ \- knows that these blocks are some of Aria’s most jealously-guarded turf, and that the women trekking to and from Afterlife are _hers_. There’s never a shortage of off-duty club security types hanging about, keeping the beggars and drunkards and _creeps_ away, far more courteous than one would expect in this hive of scum and villainy. Nobody so much as cat-calls you.

You reach Omega a few minutes later, walking up to the back entrance that’s damn-near impossible to find if you’re not looking for it. Two turians with assault rifles are standing guard, with more than enough firepower to dissuade anyone from trying to grant themselves backstage access. They recognize you on sight - one of them gives you a languid wave - but they still verify your identity card and give you a virtual pat-down for guns or drugs. Nobody’s ever accused Aria of lacking in paranoia, after all.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?” asks Selenus, one of the turian ‘ _governesses_ ’ Aria employs to keep her staff running smoothly. She flashes her omni-tool, which reminds you that you have less than three minutes before your shift starts.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” you reply, smiling slightly at Selenus’ expression as her translator strains under the weight of the idiom. “How busy are we tonight?”

“Fairly quiet,” Selenus answers, hovering a short distance behind you as you make your way to the change room, keying open a locker with your thumbprint. “Two of the big freighters from Thracian Dock pulled out earlier, so we won’t have to deal with _those_ types again.”

“ _Mm_. Heard a volus ship took its place?” You strip, hurriedly and shamelessly. Whatever inhibitions you’d had about nudity had evaporated long before you left Low Earth Orbit. You stuff your clothes in, an unsorted ball, withdrawing only a few slinky bits of fabric - the ubiquitous uniform of Afterlife.

“You heard well. Mining technicians on the way to supervise some moon-cracking project.” Selenus shrugs. “We have a few of them in right now, mostly keeping to themselves.”

“Stingy little imps, aren’t they?” You’d mastered getting into the outfit long ago, which was good, because it’d been custom-fabricated for your body. You bunch the legs up and slide into them like pantyhose, peeling the rest of the fabric over your shoulders and head. You’re still not entirely sure what the bloody thing is made of, but it’s tight, elastic, and doesn’t leave a rash, which is good enough for you. The gloves fit over your hands like a second skin. You’re hopping into your heels when a chime _beeps_ on Selenus’ omni-tool.

“ _Humans_ ,” the turian grumbles, “you’d be late showing up to the afterlife.”

“ _Please_ don’t dock my pay,” you implore, (mostly) teasingly. You wobble slightly as you finish getting your heels on, tugging down the legs of your bodysuit until they mesh together almost seamlessly.

Selenus rolls her eyes - a gesture she’d learned from humans, as much as she’d be loathe to admit it. “Fine. But get up there. Narena’s been fending off four-eyes with a stick all night.”

You offer her a mock salute and a gay smile, before hurrying your way up the small service staircase leading to the dance floors of Omega.

The door opens, and you’re immediately buffeted by a wall of _sound_. The aural implants that serve as your translators can also double well-enough as ear plugs, which is probably the only reason you aren’t deaf yet. You hurry over to the bar - tugging slightly at your outfit to smooth out a crease by your cleavage - and your night begins.

It’s not glamorous, there’s no pretending or romanticizing, but it pays the bills, and it keeps you busy. Most Afterlife patrons are content to walk up to the damn bar themselves, but a few high-flyers - mostly big-spenders who simply couldn’t _bear_ to take their eyes off a dancer for a few minutes - can order over bevs over their omni-tools, and have a scantily-clad lady bring it to them at an astronomical markup.

Asari wine, turian brandy, human vodka, volus… _something_. (Hallucinogenic gases, you’d been told once.) You fetch and deliver, using color-coded glasses to make sure you aren’t poisoning anyone too important. You’re job is to make delivery look enticing by balancing the drinks on a shimmering tray of silver, strolling like a model on a catwalk, poised and graceful. Most of the patrons just take their drink and return to whatever lap-dance they paid for. Some invite you to take a seat, hang around a bit. If there are no other orders pending you’ll indulge them, verbally and sometimes a little physically. Aria has made it clear that the waitstaff can’t be bought and handled the same way dancers can - Afterlife simply wouldn’t function if that were the case - but for a generous tip you have the discretionary authority to indulge wandering hands and wayward lips.

Sometimes it’s easy. There are more and more humans in this neck of the woods, and xenophobic as it may (technically) be, you’ll always prefer your own kind more. Male or female has never made much difference to you - the benefit of being a self-described Perfect _3_ on the Recalibrated Kinsey Scale - and work outside of Citadel Space is still predominantly a young person’s game. Adventurous types, confident types. _Your_ types. Plenty of bad apples among them, to be sure, but the bushel is still passable on the whole. Nothing quite brightens your day like a traveler from the old country with a story to share.

Not that you’re homesick or anything, not really. In many aways, Afterlife is less _risqué_ than many of the venues you’d work Earth-side, and pays head-and-shoulders better than any of them. But there’s an innate camaraderie you feel with most any human this far out, the feeling of being the new kids on the strange and alien block.

You’re mostly fine with asari. You’ve taken one or three as lovers over the years and they’re generally a gentle sort, at least physically. The fact that they can get their orgasm (sorry, ‘ _melding_ ’) means a whole different approach to lovemaking. Turians generally just prefer to watch - there’s the whole dextro-compatibility issue, not to mention all the interspecies historical baggage - but those who are interested make you glad your outfit is so covering. Talons on skin is simply not a kink of yours.

Batarians, well... 

A sloshed batarian slaps your ass as you pass him. _Hard_. The average batarian has far more muscle density than a human of similar weight, and your bodysuit offers not a lick of padding. The impact causes you to stumble and drop a bottle of three-hundred year old ryncol. You turn around - fist raised like your Glaswegian mother would’ve - but two of Aria’s guards are already on the man, grim-faced turians who seem to have materialized out of the shadows. The batarian is being dragged none-too-gently towards the exit. The _back_ exit, you note, with some vaguely vengeful satisfaction.

“ _Kire keri_ , Niamh, you alright?”

You exhale, your muscles quivering slightly at the adrenal whiplash. “I’m grand,” you reassure the woman behind you. Esrîn is one of the few other humans on Afterlife’s payroll, but you’re generally not that close. She was born on a predominantly-Kurdish colony a few light years from Sol, and signed up with a mercenary company as soon as she hit eighteen. The only reason she’s working _here_ is because she took a wayward bullet on a job gone wrong and her crew didn’t feel like footing the bill she wracked up in Omega’s One Good Hospital.

“Four-eyed _scum_ ,” Esrîn spits, with a vitriol wholly unbecoming of the effeminate dancer’s outfit she’s clothed in. “I don’t know why Aria lets them in here.”

“They’re not all bad,” you reply, even as the stinging sensation lingers on your ass. A couple of salarians janitors arrive to clean up the shattered glass, reminding you that you still have a beverage to deliver to a no doubt increasingly-impatient buyer. “We just tend to attract the weird ones.”

Esrîn shoots you a weary glance, which you translate wordlessly to mean: ‘ _Terran softie_ ’. Ever since humanity got an embassy off-world, the Powers That Be on Earth had been trying to get everyone to sing _Kumbaya_ in all the languages of the Citadel. Aliens were _different_ , yes, but not to be generalized or stereotyped. Not even the batarians.

Esrîn’s education, delivered mostly in a one-room school from a one-armed veteran of the Third Gulf and First Contact Wars, had been unsurprisingly less progressive.

“ _Hey_.” Esrîn stops you, a few strides from the bar. “You’re shaking. Take fifteen. Tell Selenus to fight me if she has a problem.”

“Can I quote you on that, Es?” you ask, with a wry smirk.

“Damn well better.”

Some part of your brain wants to protest - this is hardly the first time someone has transgressed Afterlife’s rules on unsolicited physical contact - but Esrîn has a kind of _no-nonsense_ face that you’d commit high treason to be able to imitate. She’s a protective soul - not entirely unlike Sienna, come to think of it - but her aura is less _maternal_ and more that of a soldier towards a civilian.

You see Esrîn scoop up your drink order, balancing it delicately on her own tray, and with a final _get going_ nod of her head, you take your leave.

The break room - really just the part of the change room that had less lockers and more couches - is quiet. One asari is giving another a foot massage, chatting amicably in an archaic Thessian dialect you didn’t spring extra to have installed. Neither pays you much heed as you retrieve Sienna’s vacuum-sealed meal and begin chewing on something that looks vaguely like celery and tastes mostly like rubber.

“That _takaia_?”

Your head snaps up at the flanged voice of Selenus, craning over your shoulder like a vulture. ( _No avian metaphors when describing the turians! That’s interspecies insensitivity!_ ) She hovers behind Selenus stands behind you.

“Couldn’t say. My roommate packed it for me.”

“Asari roommates?”

“Mm-hm.” You continue chewing, the stuff thicker than bubble gum. “How’d you know?”

Selenus gestures upwards with a talon. “She _loves_ the stuff,” Selenus explains, not needing to name names. “Asari brought it with them on the first visit to Palaven. Turned out the damned things grow like weeds, practically took over a whole continent. This was before we had our xeno-bio-contamination protocols down pat, of course.” She paused. “Now you can’t throw a stone without hitting some _symbolically meaningful_ takaia vine.”

The two of you stay silent for a few seconds.

“Need me back on the floor?”

“At some point,” Selenus answers, her tone weirdly gentle. You don’t envy her job. It’s a balancing act between keeping the staff happy and safe while constantly exposing them to the aroused and inebriated. No surprise, she’s a former turian naval officer. “Though if you wait five minutes, there’s a very special request coming down from the heavens.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Oh?” You ask, mouth half-full of asari delicacy/turian weed.

“Her Majesty will be entertaining tonight. _Humans_ , no less, VIPs from off-Omega. And supposedly she wants to show off her _own_ humans.” Selenus shrugged. “You and Esrîn are the only humans here tonight.”

“Oh. I… should go. I think.”

“I have to concur. Your nestmate can be a touch unpredictable.”

“Well, to begin with, I wouldn’t dare call Esrîn my _nestmate_. We’re not even from the same planet.” You pause. “Any word about what Her Grace wants, exactly?” You’ve picked up Selenus’ habit of giving Aria noble nicknames, which you just _know_ is going to bite you in the ass some day.

“You’ve never worked Aria’s VIPs before, have you?”

“Can’t say that I have,” you confess.

“Could be anything, though Aria will know what your limits are.”

“Will she now?”

Selenus inclines her head. “I’ve learned that she’s an excellent judge of character.” She paused. “So should I pass the word on that you’re game?”

“Give me a minute to think it over.”

* * *

Five minutes later you’re being scanned - _very_ thoroughly - by none other than Aria T’Loak’s majordomo, doing your best to keep your stomach from joining Cirque du Soleil. With a wordless _grunt_ he grants you entry to the Inner Sanctum.

You feel strangely vulnerable, in a way you don’t on the streets or the club floor. Your bodysuit has been swapped out for a minidress - the same color and fabric, but the style is decidedly human. _American_ , even. The skirt is ruffled, stopping well north of the knee, while your arms are bare in public for the first time in months. The denizens of Aria’s throne room aren’t here for fun, _no ma’am_ , and those who carry guns damn well look like they can use them. Dozens of eyes pass over you, equal parts leering and searching. _Who’s this lass, and what’s she doing here?_ , you can practically hear them asking.

“Hello, Mr. Grizz,” you say, with slightly-forced cheeriness, making an awkward wave to the turian standing outside the foot of a stairwell. “I was told Miss T’Loak sent for me.”

“Of course she did,” Grizz grumbles, mostly to himself. He nods with his head to a carved wooden box on the floor. You scoop it up, the the texture of black oak feeling alien to your hands after years of nothing but plastics and metals. “Take that with you. And try not to look as your dumbfounded as your nestmate did.”

“Is this some new turian slang word I haven’t heard of?” you ask, picking up the bottle. “Esrîn and I aren’t _nestmates_ in the slightest, whatever _that_ means.” Grizz nods along, making a vague _go-ahead_ gesture with his arm. “And if you turians are all just having a laugh at us poor humans’ expense, then-”

In retrospect, your line of inquiry should probably have focused on what exactly Esrîn had been ‘ _dumbfounded_ ’ by.

“Commander…. _Shepard_?”

“Oh, _and_ she’s Irish? This is just too fucking cute.”

You’d recognize that low, intoxicating, _dangerous_ voice anywhere in the bloody galaxy. So would every other human. You’d all heard the recordings, scene the clips, the dramatizations. A _contralto_ voice with all the strength and menace of a leopard, a tiger. A _predator_. Humanity’s best and worst all wrapped into one bipedal package of death and destruction.

 _Sevgi Shepard_. The first human Spectre. The Hero of the Citadel. Humanity’s Lion.

And very much not of this world... or so you’d been told.

“Hey, I’m not paying you to stand there and look pretty,” Aria T’Loak says in an amused tone, your boss’s boss’s voice snapping you back to reality.

“Of course. Excuse me, ma’am.”

You take a few short breaths, managing to take in the scene before you. You’re in a throne room. Perhaps not literally, but there’s no doubt what Aria wants you to think. The couches are arranged to take up space, to assert _dominance_ , and the view of Afterlife it affords could only be called _commanding_. The lack of any personal mementos makes you think this was a place of business first, a conspicuous consumption rather than a private abode.

Aria’s clad in her usual ensemble, which is somehow more striking than anything Milan or Berkenstein could ever produce. She wears leather - the real organic stuff asari generally tend to avoid - and her posture’s tense, as if she’s expecting someone to whip out a knife at any moment. She probably is.

You approach, slowly and carefully, unfastening the bronze latches on the box as elegantly as you can muster. The bottle inside rests on a bed of silk cloth, and the scent of old wood fills your nostrils. You draw close, spotting a low glass table between the two ladies, and stop before it. Setting the box down, you pull out the bottle, which feels slippery in your sweat-streaked hands, wishing all the world for a towel like a proper sommelier would have.

“It’s… ah… Marhide Rare Collection,” you say, reading off the label. “Blue Earth One Seventy One Elite single-malt whiskey.” You blink, somehow managing to be dumbstruck for a second time in two minutes. There was the public drinks menu, the ‘special requests’ list, and the stock of stuff so expensive and exotic that you’d never once had a chance to serve it. This was from the last one.

“You think I’m the kind of girl who’ll sleep with you for a drink?” Shepard asks, eyes not once drifting from Aria.

“As if I needed to bribe you,” Aria replied, in a tone dry as talc. “Two glasses,” she says, with a nod in your general direction.

You scurry to comply. Thankfully, you’ve spent enough time as a waitress in Afterlife to have the mechanics of unbottling down pat, though this might well be pricier than every other drink you’ve served (combined). You drop to your knees, pouring a few fingers of fluid into each tumbler on the table, spilling not a drop. You shuffle on your knees to T’Loak - a move about as seductively submissive as you’ve ever pulled off - and hand her the glass, which she snatches with wanton disregard for its pricelessness.

You repeat the gesture, this time bringing a drink to Jane Shepard. Up close - up _really_ close - the surreality somehow is amped to eleven. With your face mere inches from it, you can tell that the armor isn’t a Hollywood prop, dotted as it is with scratches and burns. She barely seems to move, almost preternaturally still, like some beast waiting for its prey, ever-patiently.

Shepard moves to take the glass, but her hand curls around it, trapping your fingers in hers. Your eyes dart up, instinctively, and you drown in Shepard’s.

 _They’re different eyes_. Not the emerald-greens of the dramatizations and propaganda, _no_ , these are clearly cybernetics. Replacements. Her skin’s pockmarked with a dozen scars that weren’t there when she saved the Citadel. Only her hair matches your mental image, the same choppy pixie cut that’s most definitely not the reason your own hair’s the way it is.

For a moment, you wonder if she’s an imposter. It’d be the stuff of science fiction, but _science fiction_ has been becoming _reality_ at an ever-quickening chop. Surely it’d be within the realm of modern reconstructive surgery, or - impossibly illegal as it would be - a clone. Genome replacement and artificially-accelerated aging like that one Olympics scandal back in-

“Oh, you’re _damn right_ I’m real,” Shepard says, silencing every thought in your head at once.

“How?” You ask, without thinking a moment about propriety.

“I’m sure a nice girl like you knows the story of Lazarus.”

You can’t tell if Shepard’s massively bullshitting you, or if your _seanmháthair_ really was onto something with her old Bible fables. Right now, you’re open to pretty much anything.

“She’s cute, isn’t she?” asks Aria, trying to sound bored but obviously slightly annoyed at Shepard’s wandering attention. “Headhunted her a few months back, fresh off the freighter.”

“No shit.” Shepard’s fingers slide beneath your jaw, keeping your head tilted up, gently but firmly. “And how’s the Queen Bitch treating you?”

“Miss…. Miss T’Loak treats us all v-very well, Commander. N-never later with the paychecks.” Stuttering. Lord. That’s something you haven’t done since Gaelscoil.

“ _Goddess_ , Shepard, don’t torture the thing,” Aria chides.

“Don’t worry, I don’t play with my food,” Shepard replies, even as she traces a line unthinkingly along your cheek. There’s something hypnotic to her touch, possessive and spellbinding. You really don’t have the words to describe just how impossibly legendary Shepard is to you. To _humanity_ , really. And here she is, running a finger across you like a piece of lace she’s taken a fancy to.

Aria tilts her head - something in that last idiom was probably lost in the translation. “Not your type?”

“My yeoman with a brogue? My blood runs hotter than that, T’Loak.”

You blink a little. Shepard’s Sapphic preferences are a matter of public record - even championed in the parts of the world where attitudes towards sexuality still lagged the modern consensus. After _Citadel_ had been released, you might have drunkenly verbalized a fantasy or two involving a certain Spectre, a spaceship, and a pair of military-grade handcuffs. Except the Shepard of _Citadel_ had been almost squeaky-clean, a model officer for the Systems Alliance; not the kind of woman who might (hypothetically) give you a firm spanking between rolls in the sheets.

The Sevgi Shepard _sitting right in front of you_ , well... 

“You’re a very hard woman to please,” Aria noted, with something that might be called approval in her voice.

“I just know exactly what I want,” Shepard replies, with inimitable confidence. “And here I thought you might actually be able to provide it.”

Aria grinned. “That’ll be all, Ni,” she says. “You can leave the bottle and show yourself out.” She pauses. “Unless Shepard sees something in your ass she likes.”

You half-turn, a little too quickly, arching your back in a way that does wonders for your bottom. There are admittedly _very_ few people who walk into Omega who you’d actually _encourage_ to touch your arse without buying you dinner and a movie first (professional obligations notwithstanding). Commander Shepard was never someone you thought would - _could_ \- be on that list.

She’s not hesitant, her hands finding your thighs and moving _upwards_ \- but not cloying, either. Your legs quiver at her touch, and the gasp that passes your lips is unmistakably pleasurable. Shepard’s hands feel muscled, almost calloused, but there’s still a deliberateness to her movements. On her first attempt she finds the exact spot between your legs most boyfriends take a month to discover.

Her hand over your ass wipes away any memory of the batarian’s crude slap.

“She’s cute,” Shepard says, the warmth of her hands leaving your skin. “I’d break her in five minutes. Or less.”

Aria’s snort was pure amusement. “No one’s ever accused you of _modesty_ , I can tell.”

“Would you like me to dance for you, miss?” you volunteer, your voice sounding impossibly high-pitched compared to the low rumbles of the Queen and the Commander. Then you realize you just said that out loud.

It’s probably the first time you’ve ever made the offer, at least in Afterlife. Probably because you’re not really a dancer, not compared to the sensuous masterpieces Aria’s finest perform on a nightly basis. Sienna has taught you a few basic moves, and you hope to audition one of these days, for the better pay if nothing else, but without a pole you’d be mostly useless.

Something about Shepard makes you offer anyways. You _want_ to perform for her. To be the object of her desire. To feel her gaze... and her hands... on your body.

“Sorry, babe, I’ve never been one for dancing,” Shepard finally answers, her voice low and gentle. Her eyes swivel back to Aria. “Or third wheels.”

Aria chuckles a little, and the noise sounds _wrong_ , unbefitting. “Tell Selenus you have the rest of the night off. And remind Grizz not to interrupt me for _anything_.

It takes you a second to compose yourself, to the changing sensations in your body and feelings in your mind. One moment you’re a hair’s breath from sleeping with the Amazonian of your most debauched fantasies. The next you’re being cast aside, a distracting appetizer to whatever main course they have planned..

You offer a kind of curtsey on your way out, though neither _femme fatale_ is looking your way as you do. Grizz offers you a vaguely surprised look as you exit - clearly he hadn’t expected you to be on your way out til dawn - while Selenus accepts your explanation with a wizened nod of her head. A glance at your omni-tool confirms that you’d been summoned scarcely a half-hour ago.

The whirlwind of disbelief is still settling down as you trek back to your flat. The walk gives you time to think, to collect your thoughts, which you badly need. _Shepard is alive_. You’d heard _rumors_ , of course, the random commenter on the extranet, sensationalist gossip that sometimes slipped into respectable news coverage. Always dismissed them out of hand, of course. It was only natural, only _human_ , to wish the impossible. That the heroic Commander Shepard hadn’t been snuffed out in a freak attack in the Traverse, a pointless, meaningless loss.

But it was _real_.

You arrive back at your flat, your head still swimming. Sienna and Alina are both awake, engaged in some asari card game, and greet you with mild concern. You dismiss those concerns - mouth something mollifying about Aria hosting a VIP event - and they’re experienced enough with the queen’s weird ways to accept that without much questioning. You thank Sienna for the _takaia_ , which earns her a tease from Alina. You feign the need to sleep, which they politely decline to call _bullshit_ on, and are soon safely secluded in your cell of a room once more.

The swimming doesn’t stop until you lie down on your bed, staring up at the industrial-grey ceiling above. Your heart’s still pounding - quite frankly, you’re _giddy_ \- coming off a nervous high like you’re seventeen and bringing a boy to bed for the first time.

 _Shepard’s alive. You_ touched _Shepard_.

What a weird thing to fangirl about, some part of your subconscious reminds you, but you don’t care. Everyone’s allowed their strange little crushes, and yours just happens to be the deadliest woman in human history.

 _Warrior_. _Hero_. _Martyr_.

You pull up Risa Uvarsen’s _Citadel_ , planning to fast-forward to every scene featuring Shepard, but you stop yourself. That version is a lie, you know that much. A panegyric and a eulogy, a simplification and a disservice.

You check a few extranet news sites, and confirmed that no where _reputable_ had confirmed Shepard’s return yet. So it wasn’t real, yet, at least not to the galaxy-at-large. You were part of the privileged few that knew that the mouth hell might have swallowed Shepard whole, but it had choked on her, spat her back out into the realm of the living.

Into Afterlife. How deliciously ironic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, criticism, suggestions, and all other assorted feedback are always welcome. Even just a quick line saying you enjoyed it can brighten my day as much as twenty kudos would.
> 
> This ended up being a bit tamer than I planned for it to be (I'm a terrible smut writer), but if people seemed to enjoy it I might expand it a bit more. Renegade Fem Shep and Aria are such a fun pairing, too.
> 
> Feel free to track me down on [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com) or [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/), I'm always up for a good chat.


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